Czech utility Plzeňská teplárenská commissions 30 MW electric boiler for CZK 120m to use cheap power

Plzeňská teplárenská, the largest heat supplier in western Bohemia, has put a new 30 MW electric boiler into a six-month trial operation. The project, costing CZK 120 million and connected to the steam technology at the company’s site in Doubravka, responds to increasingly frequent low or even negative electricity prices on the market, caused by a surplus of generation from renewable sources. Václav Pašek, head of the company, which is majority-owned by the city of Plzeň and 35 percent owned by Daniel Křetínský’s EPH group, told the Czech News Agency.

“The electric boiler consumes cheap electricity, turns it into heat, and we feed medium-pressure steam into the district heating system,” Pašek said.

According to him, the boiler will be used in various operating modes. In addition to taking advantage of low prices on the day-ahead electricity market to produce heat more cheaply, it will also provide balancing services to ČEPS, helping to balance the transmission system. Plzeňská teplárenská will also use it as a backup heat source for its largest customer, Prazdroj, which operates at a neighboring site.

“As a backup source for heat supplies, it is an integral part of the decarbonization project, which will ensure a shift away from coal to gas and hydrogen,” spokesperson Petra Siegerová said.

The company, which is continuously reducing its coal consumption, already produces almost half of its heat from biomass and municipal waste—emission-free fuels. Next year, it will begin building two new gas-fired combined heat and power plants at a cost of CZK 7 billion.

The 20-tonne, eight-metre-high steam electrode boiler, the first at the heating plant, generates steam at a temperature of 240 degrees Celsius. “It has a high efficiency of 99 percent, so its thermal output is 29 megawatts. At the summer peak, it will cover 80 to 85 percent of the market. Together with the ZEVO waste-to-energy plant, it would cover the entire summer. We don’t burn coal at all in summer. Since March/April, we have been operating only on biomass and ZEVO,” Pašek said.

“As the European energy sector moves toward renewable sources, it is necessary to balance generation and consumption because renewable sources do not offer particularly good flexibility. Electric boilers are among the balancing technologies,” said Jan Bendík, director of Egem, the general contractor for the Swedish electric boiler made by Zander & Ingeström.